How do we clear an EHCP annual review backlog?

Triage by statutory deadline: clear phase-transfer and most-overdue reviews first, then batch-book meetings and send each report to the council within two weeks, so it can meet the 12-week duty to issue any amended plan. A backlog feels like one undifferentiated pile, but the law does not treat every overdue review the same. Some have hard, dated deadlines and some do not, so the first move is to sort the pile by legal risk, not by name or by how long a file has been sitting on your desk.

First: triage in the right order

Work through the backlog in this order, because this is the order in which the deadlines bite:

1. Phase-transfer reviews. Where a pupil is moving between phases of education, the plan must be reviewed and amended where needed by 15 February in the year of transfer, or by 31 March for a move into post-16 (regulation 18, SEND Regulations 2014). These are fixed calendar dates, so they come first whatever else is waiting.
2. The most overdue 12-month reviews. Every plan must be reviewed within 12 months of the last review. The longer one has run past 12 months, the longer the breach has been running, so the oldest go next.
3. Pupils at risk of exclusion or placement breakdown. A review is the formal route to change provision before a placement fails, so pull these forward even if they are not yet the most overdue.

Then: batch-book and write up

Once the order is set, run the meetings in batches rather than one at a time. For each meeting the rules are the same: circulate the advice and information at least two weeks before, then prepare the review report and send it to the council and everyone who was invited within two weeks of the meeting (regulation 20). Sending the report is the school's hard duty and the trigger for everything that follows, so the date you send each report is the date that matters most to record. The fuller process, including who must attend, is set out in your duties at a pupil's annual review.

The split-duty point most guidance misses

Clearing the backlog is not wholly the school's job to fix. The legal duty to review every plan sits with the council, not the school (section 44, Children and Families Act 2014), and so does the clock to issue any amended plan. Once a review accepts an amendment, the council has a mandatory 12-week timeframe to issue the final amended plan, confirmed by the High Court in R (L) v Devon County Council. So where the hold-up is the council failing to issue decisions, that is a continuing breach the council can be challenged on, not a school failing. Document every meeting date and report-sent date, and put it in writing to the council's SEN team where the delay is theirs. A parent, the young person or the school can also ask for an early or interim review at any time if needs change.

Does the 2026 reform change this?

No. The 2026 Schools White Paper and the Education for All Bill propose a new Individual Support Plan and a narrower EHCP for the most complex needs, but with no changes before September 2030 and current plan holders protected. The annual-review duty and the timings above are live law and are not being scrapped, so keep clearing the backlog to them.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.